It’s Friday: Time for a little bragging…

Yes, I did. I am now a VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 5.0. The powers-that-be realize, as I and my teammates do, that it’s important to be well-versed in what’s happening in the real world datacenters; especially if we’re going to be comparing and contrasting (and competing) with other solutions. One of the biggest competitors we have is VMware in the datacenter and virtualization space. So we acquired some funds to get trained on VMware, and to get certified if we wanted to take it to that extreme.

So, last week I took the week-long “VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage [5.0]” training course. And then this week, aside from preparing for and delivering a talk down in Winona, MN, I spent my days studying, installing, playing-with, and re-studying my class notes and labs. And this morning at 9:00am I took the test. Score: 422 (of 500, I think). Passing is 300. So, with the class and the test out of the way, I expect to hear from VMware soon that I’m “VCP5” certified.

“Wow… Congratulations!”

Aw shucks. Thanks.

“I guess that explains why you’ve been very quiet on the blog here.”

Yeah, that’s right. July at Microsoft is all planning and budgeting and getting geared up for the coming (fiscal) year.. and it’s a good opportunity to get done with some goals for the year that might otherwise be hard to do when we get into full-blown prep/event/travel/launch/IT Camp/Presentation/etc.-mode. In fact, in preparation for the other big certification I want to acquire this year, I’m leaving for Redmond on Sunday for a week of intensive Private Cloud training.